Search form

Intelligence Failures Now and Then

The special commission investigating U.S.
intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war has been focusing on
the erroneous belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). But the president’s candid hour-long interview
with NBC’s Tim Russert pointed to another serious intelligence
failure: The president’s decision to take the country to war in
Iraq was based not on the observations of area experts and seasoned
professionals, but rather on the advice of a handful of partisans
with a political axe to grind. In fact, Ahmed Chalabi, head of the
Iraqi National Congress, has admitted that his reports on WMD were
faulty but that it doesn’t matter now. “We are heroes in error,” he
says. “Our objective has been achieved. … What was said before is
not important.”

All presidents receive information about potential threats from
many sources. Much of this information is speculative, some of it
is contradictory. Even the best leaders make decisions based on
incomplete information, and on intuition.

Often their hunches are correct. Following the dramatic launch
of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in October 1957, many
Americans feared that the United States had become vulnerable to
nuclear attack from Soviet missiles, and they called upon President
Dwight Eisenhower to close the so-called missile gap.

But Eisenhower doubted that Soviet successes in the space race
constituted a threat to the United States. A key factor in
Eisenhower’s belief that there was no missile gap were
conversations that he had had with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
At one point, for example, Khrushchev confided to Eisenhower that
the United States possessed an overwhelming strategic advantage
over the Soviets. It was for this reason, Khrushchev explained,
that the Soviets would not agree to an arms control pact that would
freeze American superiority into place.

There was always the possibility that Khrushchev was lying.
Eisenhower weighed that possibility. But he noted that the U-2 spy
plane program had failed to locate even a single operational Soviet
missile site. Eisenhower correctly deduced that Khrushchev was
telling the truth. There was no missile gap.

Compare this episode with the approach taken by President Bush
in the lead up to war with Iraq. The president received numerous
recommendations about what to do with Iraq. Very few people
disputed that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. But some warned
that Iraq would disintegrate into a cycle of violence following his
removal from power. Others worried that a new government would be
hostile toward the United States. A classified State Department
report released to the media prior to the start of the war warned
that, throughout the Middle East, “anti-American sentiment is so
pervasive that elections in the short term could lead to the rise
of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to the United
States.”

Given these pre-war predictions, journalists asked senior Bush
administration officials how they would deal with such a
government. Russert asked: “If the Iraqis choose…an Islamic
extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better
for the United States than Saddam Hussein?” The president replied:
“They’re not going to develop that.”

He then revealed that his confidence stemmed from some special
intelligence he received in a private conversation. “Right here in
the Oval Office,” the president explained, “I sat down with Mr.
Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people … that have made the
firm commitment” to “minority rights and freedom of religion.”
“These people are committed to a pluralistic society.”

The three people in question — Adnan Pachachi, Ahmed Chalabi,
and Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim — are members of the Iraqi Governing
Council appointed by the United States immediately after the
collapse of Saddam’s regime. Pachachi was thrown out of the Iraqi
government following the Baathist coup of 1968 and spent many of
the intervening years in the United Arab Emirates. Chalabi left
Iraq in 1956, and is best known for his role as a leader of the
Iraqi National Congress, an organization that had long advocated
Saddam’s removal from power. Finally, Al Hakim, is a leader of the
Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution and is also a leader in
the Shiite paramilitary Badr corps.

These people, the president says, are committed to creating a
liberal democracy. And, in fairness, “these people” — two who have
not lived in Iraq for decades and a third the leader of an
Iranian-based Shiite revolutionary group — may be. But, given that
American administrators appointed them to the Governing Council,
should we have expected any less?

Before taking the country to war, the president argued that the
costs of inaction outweighed the costs of action. His calculations
assumed a smooth transition in post-Saddam Iraq to a liberal
democratic government that harbored no ill will toward the United
States. He based this presumption not on the opinions of area
experts, but rather on the promise of three individuals whose
credibility was open to challenge, and whose understanding of the
situation on the ground in Iraq was based not on facts, but rather
on conjecture, speculation, and wishful thinking.